Mom says....
Ecuador was for me my first trip below the equator and, although I was an exchange student in high school, also the first time I was going to visit a country where I didn’t speak the language and wasn’t going to be there long enough to have any expectation of learning it.
The south of the equator aspect of the trip was fine; we did check, indeed, water goes down the drain in the opposite direction. One of my daughters actually filmed it. The warmer weather was also a pleasant respite from the freezing Michigan temperatures we left behind. Despite relatively thorough sun screen usage, I did get a sunburn one day when we simply walked along the river for a half an hour at most. The sun is definitely intense near the equator.
The language was kind of funny. Several of us had experiences where someone greeted us or did something for us, and instead of responding with the Spanish greeting that we did actually know or gracias, the Spanish for “thank you”, we either stood there with a deer in the headlights look, or started to respond with words from other foreign languages we know better than Spanish. I feel like our brains, at least as far as languages go, have a foreign language file, and if there isn’t an easily accessible word in the Spanish file, it just looks for the word in another foreign language file. It was embarrassing responding with “merci” (French thank you) or “hai” (Japanese yes) when with a little thought the Spanish was within my grasp.
A food that we all discovered we loved wasn’t one of the indigenous foods. My daughter lives in an area of Ecuador that grows peanuts. One food that she missed, but hated paying a lot for at the Super Maxi grocery store, was peanut butter. So, she developed her own recipe for peanut butter from the locally produced peanut paste. It’s fabulous! Jif has nothing on this stuff, and it came in very handy several times along the way.
Things I learned in Ecuador:
· Cows can graze on steep mountain slopes; we called them “mountain cows”
· People who grow bananas put a plastic bag over the clump of bananas as they are growing
· Two songs being sung at the same time on the same bus is truly annoying
· There are bijillions of types of humming birds
· It’s impossible to avoid the Ecuadorian equivalent of Montezuma’s revenge
· The Andes are gorgeous!
Dad says....
Surprises---------
Cell Phones in use everywhere
How stark the Andes appear approaching from the coastal plain with very steep slopes
How developed the big cities are including Guayaquile, Quenca and LojaThe efficient public bus system on main roads that ran on-time (better than our jetplane rides)
Bus drivers passing on narrow mountain roads at dark in fog (Eeeks!)
"Mountain" cows (my name for them) that manage to graze even near mountain peaks
A farmer plowing his field with a single-point plot attached to two cows
Banana plantations appear to pre-wrap the growing banana cluster in a plastic bag
"Mature" movies playing for the many families on the bus to Loja
Palm trees dotting the crestline of most of the mountains we saw
Little boroughs with high concentrations of foreigners like Vilcabamba
Outdoor festivals and numerous fireworks in celebration of New Year's eve
Lack of insect swarms on the edge of the jungle
How skilled Alli has become at hailing taxis and "hitch-hike" rides in pick-ups
How many strangers recognized MSU whenever I wore my MSU Track T-shirt
Not-So Surprising-----------------
Beautiful scenery supplied by the Andes mountains and valleys
Friendly welcome at Alli's site by her host Aunt and Uncle at their house in Catacocha
Miles and miles of banana plantations on the coastal plain, also papaya and pineapple
Talkative lady with granddaughter on her lap on bus to Quenca who didn't care that I speak almost no Spanish, but said a friendly "Hola" to (fortunately Alli rescued me for a while)
Multitude of birds visiting feeders on the edge of the jungle
Very few English-speaking people anywhere
Iffy tap-water most places
Theresa says....
Transportation in Ecuador for us consisted mostly of bus riding - hours upon hours of it. The music played in the background reminded me of this computer game, Tropico, that I used to play a lot, developing islands as "El Presidante" in the tropics. Whoever designed that game must have spent some time on the busses in Ecuador.
Another mode of transportation was hitch-hiking, which we got to experience for the first time in the back of a pick-up truck, hiding under our raincoats while it was pouring. Even in bad weather, I still found the experience thrilling, especially going around turns on the edges of mountains in thick fog.
We met Alli's host aunt, uncle, and cousin and shared a delicious Ecuadorian dinner with them. Ecuadorians by the way, are into their carbs. Rice and fries seem to be their traditional side dishes, and their fries are delicious, and I'm willing to say, gasp, better than McDonald's!
I had been looking forward to seeing the jungle, and our eco-friendly cabana surrounded by it, was perfect. We had banana trees, hammocks, horses, and plenty of rainforesty looking vegetation, birds and bugs to meet my expectations, and I have the bug bites to prove it! Our hike through the jungle where I got to slide down a hill to discover a waterfall left me a happy camper.
What I think was my favorite part of the trip we stumbled upon in Guayaquil while wasting time before our flight home on New Year's Eve. Guayaquil was having an all day celebration in the street next to the gorgeous boardwalk on the bay. There were live performances, from belly dancers, a meriotche band, clowns, and dance groups, a shake your butt competition, and even a place to take your picture inside a mock-up of the device used to rescue the trapped minors in Chile.
My favorite Ecuadorian tradition was the Año viejos which were human-sized and bigger stuffed dolls that they light on fire on New Year's Eve. We found out from numerous loud bangs that set off car alarms, that they were filled with fireworks. The tradition is to stuff things from the ending year into the doll and burn it. The outside however is just decorated for fun, so it was hilarious seeing some Woody and Buzz Lightyears, Shrecks, and Ecuadorian Presidents strapped to cars all around Ecuador.
This trip was definitely a stark contrast from my last trip which was full of five star hotels in China, but it was an experience, I learned some Spanish, it was beautiful, and I happily did not encounter any tarantulas at Alli's site!
